“We are pleased to be working with these two community organizations which are committed to improving the quality of life of their residents,” said Scott Bernstein, CNT’s president. “Each of these communities have specific challenges to address—from developing and implementing plans to address vacant land and blighted property to engaging residents in sustainability planning.”

This technical assistance is made possible by a grant to Project for Public Spaces from the United States Environmental Protection Agency Office of Sustainable Communities under the Building Blocks for Sustainable Communities Program. The Building Blocks program funds quick, targeted assistance to communities that face common development problems.

Read the full press release >>
Learn about Livability Solutions >>

“We are pleased to see green infrastructure included in the overall plan to manage our stormwater in the Chicago region,” said Kathryn Tholin, CEO of the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT), which has worked for more than a decade to demonstrate the myriad benefits of green infrastructure and foster its widespread use. “The additional investment in green infrastructure dwarfs previous investment in the proven, cost-effective practice, and it will allow the district and others to measure its benefits at a regionwide scale.”

“Despite the positive step forward, the 15-year timeframe for implementing green infrastructure is far too long and should be accelerated,” said Tholin. “Philadelphia and St. Louis, cities smaller than Chicago, have invested much more money in green infrastructure in a much shorter period of time. The beauty of green infrastructure is that we can implement these solutions now and begin seeing positive results in communities long before the Deep Tunnel is complete. Deploying green infrastructure in communities is the quickest, cheapest way to address costly flooding in homes and businesses.”

The research around stormwater management shows that an investment in green infrastructure measures can be as effective as conventional approaches in relieving flooding and managing stormwater, at a lower cost.  In addition, green infrastructure can bring multiple community benefits, reducing water pollution, saving energy, enhancing green space, improving air quality, and increasing home values, to name a few.

CNT has helped demonstrate the benefits of green infrastructure in numerous ways, such as:

• installing 35 green infrastructure demonstration projects throughout Chicago.
• creating the Green Values^TM Stormwater Management Calculator for planners and practitioners to understand the costs and performance of various green infrastructure strategies on specific properties.
• advocating for policies that remove barriers to widespread deployment of green infrastructure and provide funding for communities to implement their own green infrastructure projects.
• developing a guide based on measured results and good engineering practice that allows municipalities to quantify the economic value of green infrastructure’s benefits.

Tree Asset Management in Portland, Oregon is available here.

Why Tree Asset Management
The urban tree canopy has gained broad recognition in recent decades for its contributions to municipalities’ ecological and social well-being. It manages regional stormwater, reduces the urban heat island effect, improves air quality, increases property value, and enhances community livability. However, securing investment dollars to sustain the long-term infrastructure value of urban trees has proved challenging.

To determine the value of trees as infrastructure, cities need to quantify the various services that trees deliver and relate their performance to that of adjacent conventional infrastructure. Cities can translate that performance into long-term asset valuation in order to harness funding that supports and expands the infrastructure service of a tree canopy.

Portland Has Key Elements of Tree Asset Management in Place
Portland already recognizes and measures many of the benefits their trees provide, particularly relating to stormwater, energy, and livability values. But the tree canopy’s difference from conventional infrastructure has so far precluded the classification of trees as capital assets and their eligibility for capital funds, which are the bread and butter of utility investment.

A tree asset management program could fix that. Portland has several key elements in place. It has conducted research that would create the baseline of a tree asset management pilot program, such as tracking tree planting and condition. The city has developed urban forest canopy goals and an action plan that fosters interagency participation. Portland has quantified costs and benefits of the urban canopy, showing that the city enjoys a $3.80 return on every $1 invested. Portland has also already launched a variety of projects and initiatives that could support tree asset management implementation.

Six Steps to Tree Asset Management
Portland is well-positioned to institute a tree asset management program, but any city could institute one. CNT has identified the following six steps a city should take before instituting its own program:

1. Select a handful of sample neighborhoods as pilot areas.
2. Conduct a baseline tree census for those areas.
3. Assuming a 20- or 30-year potential investment life, project the life-cycle asset value of the utility services delivered by trees,  particularly their influence on stormwater management, energy use, and property value.
4. Construct a web-based tool that con­nects inventory data, maintenance, and performance value projections for asset accounting and reporting. An integrated tree asset management tool would serve as an administrative tool for both management and accounting, and would help to encourage public in­volvement and support for tree-based infrastructure services.
5. Report annually on incremental performance and asset value.
6. Evaluate pilot results and tools to determine citywide expansion.

The decision was unveiled in the city budget proposal for 2012 to the Chicago City Council today. Among the new initiatives it puts forward is an increase in the annual fee for water and sewer services. The water fee for property owners would increase by 25 percent next year and would begin to charge institutions, such as CNT, for water services that have historically received those services for free.

CNT’s Vice President of Policy Jacky Grimshaw served on the mayoral transition committee that recommended it to him. “Equitable and accurate rates for usage is essential for both system efficiency and managing long-term operational costs associated with water services in the City,” the transition document states.

As a leader and proponent of stormwater management techniques, such as green infrastructure, CNT and its Water program staff look forward to working with the mayor to ensure innovative, sustainable stormwater management measures are a significant part of the City’s water infrastructure modernization effort.

Wangari Maathai speaks at the Al Raby School for Community and Environment on September 22, 2007 about the importance of rain gardens like the one CNT helped to plant at the school.

We at CNT are saddened to learn of the passing of 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai, founder of the Green Belt  Movement. CNT was honored to have Ms. Maathai join us at the dedication of one of our first green infrastructure projects, located at the Al Raby School for Community and Environment and named in her honor.

CNT worked with the Al Raby School and the East Garfield Park community in 2007 to install the Wangari Maathai Natural Garden, a native woodland garden at the entrance of the school, located at 3545 West Fulton Boulevard. The project was not only beautiful; it also connected the students to nature by providing a hands-on experience in landscape design, creation, and maintenance.

At the garden dedication, Ms. Maathai drew a connection between the work of the students on Chicago’s West Side to students around the world who “get down on the ground” to plant gardens as a means of making the world more peaceful and just. Ms. Maathai said that the project was a microcosm of what can be repeated globally—from Chicago to Kenya. “It is this type of activity that should be replicated a billion times throughout the world,” she stated as she toured the 1,500 square foot space. Our thoughts and condolences go to her family and to all those who have been touched by her dedication to peace and justice through creating a healthier world, one tree at a time.

View pictures of the dedication and the garden.

Click here for more information about the Wangari Maathai Natural Garden.

Key public, private, and nonprofit stakeholders attended a water infrastructure discussion hosted by CNT.

A CNT event to introduce our refocused water program drew more than 100 stakeholders from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors to the Sidley Austin law firm’s beautiful office in downtown Chicago. CNT CEO Kathryn Tholin and CNT Water Program Director Harriet Festing framed the evening’s panel discussion by describing CNT’s approach to developing sustainability solutions for a wide range of water resource issues.

Festing laid out the water services problem and its complexities. Years of neglect has led to crumbling water infrastructure in the United States, which costs communities millions in lost revenue and damaged property. Infrastructure failure also contributes to flooding, which industry experts estimate cost private property owners in the Chicago region around $150 million in repair costs each year. That flooding also contributes to combined sewer overflows that dump 24 billion gallons of untreated sewage and stormwater into the Great Lakes annually. These issues are interrelated, social, costly, and getting worse.

CNT’s Water program seeks solutions in three distinct ways: by exposing the problem to build a public mandate for change, testing solutions with pilot projects, and advocating policy changes to bring viable solutions to scale.

Clearly, CNT cannot do it alone. Festing turned it over to three panelists with three different perspectives—Alan Heymann of the DC water and sewage authority, Jack Pizzo of Pizzo and Associates, and Bob Newport of US Environmental Protection Agency—who presented their “breakthrough” water services solutions. Some of the ideas included:

• Improved communication with rate payers and citizens about water resources
• Innovative delivery partnerships and alliances with nonprofit and private sectors
• Changing governance structures and better performance reporting by water utilities
• Changing regulation to allow for new technologies in water resource infrastructure, such as green infrastructure.

A lively Q&A session followed, with audience members posing questions about Chicago’s Deep Tunnel project, bottled water, grassroots action, and incorporating innovation into how cities meet their legal obligation. To see how the CNT Water program might incorporate these ideas into its work, sign up for our monthly newsletter.

MWRD’s new executive director, David St. Pierre, proposed the new program to the Board of Commissioners today at the agency’s monthly meeting.  While details of the program are still being worked out, St. Pierre said he intends to use the money “to facilitate the planning, design, and construction of multiple GI projects throughout Cook County in collaboration with a variety of stakeholders, including non-profit groups and municipalities.”

Green infrastructure, or GI, includes projects that infiltrate stormwater into the ground, helping reduce the amount of stormwater runoff that enters sewers and streams. Rain gardens and pervious pavement are typical examples.

In his remarks, St. Pierre referred to CNT and its current green infrastructure projects as potential models for the new MWRD program. Hal Sprague, Manager of Water Policy at CNT, spoke in support of the initiative at the board meeting and answered questions from the commissioners on how CNT and other organizations might play a role in its implementation.

To learn more about CNT’s water initiatives, go to: http://www.cnt.org/water/

CNT will revitalize the space by using reclaimed materials and adding native plants. The design will reduce the impervious, hot asphalt heat island through cut-outs in the lot that will contain stormwater infiltration areas. The scrap asphalt will then be used to build decorative garden edge walls defining our rain garden structure and reducing stormwater runoff while containing the soil.

Once the garden is built, it will be used as a space where the public can visit and learn about sustainability. See the image below to learn more about our plan.

Grant winners will use the funding to install cost-effective, environmentally friendly systems to tackle flooding in basements and on streets. These systems, known as “green infrastructure” practices, include vegetative swales, permeable paving, green rooftops, trees and rain gardens, which capture the rain where it falls.

“This funding will provide the seed money needed for communities to test out green infrastructure and observe first-hand all the benefits it provides,” said Scott Bernstein, president of CNT. “The research shows that green infrastructure measures are as effective as conventional approaches in relieving flooding, and can be installed more cheaply and quickly. They also reduce the cost to municipalities of managing stormwater, improve air quality and increase home values. Cash-strapped municipalities should especially take a closer look at this strategy for managing water resources, given its much higher return on investment.”
More than 150 state and local units of government, nonprofit organizations, citizen and environmental groups, individuals and businesses applied to the program, requesting a total of $50 million. The outpouring of interest was particularly impressive considering the 25 percent funding match required of most applicants.

Over the past 12 years, CNT has worked with community residents and leaders to construct approximately 35 individual green infrastructure projects that effectively manage stormwater to reduce flooding in basements and yards. However, for green infrastructure measures to be most effective, they need to be installed at scale in a neighborhood or community. To that end, CNT is working to demonstrate that dozens, and ultimately thousands, of people can work together to reduce flooding heartaches and hazards in their neighborhoods.

CNT selected the Village of Wilmette and Chicago neighborhoods of Albany Park and Rogers Parke because they have the same water drainage pathways to the North Branch of the Chicago River. More than 600 Wilmette families live in the floodplain of the Skokie River tributary of the river’s North Branch. Drainage from Wilmette contributes to the serious flooding in homes eight miles downstream in Albany Park. Albany Park also faces flooding from Rogers Park, whose stormwater also drains into the North Branch, which cuts through Albany Park.

Flooding in Albany Park is one big problem; another one is that during major storms, the flow of the North Shore Channel is reversed to drain into Lake Michigan at the Wilmette Harbor. Because most communities in the Chicago region have a combined sewer system, the discharges into Wilmette Harbor contaminate the harbor and beaches along the lake front with raw sewage.

Although the project is just getting started, CNT has already uncovered a strong interest from residents who are concerned about flooding in the area. CNT has held three public events so far, and more than 100 residents want to get involved.

Throughout the rest of the summer, CNT plans to organize additional meetings to expand the interest in the program and develop strategies in each community. Sign up for the CNT newsletter to stay on top of this project and other water program activities as they happen.